The urban new developing zone takes the priority to integrate natural processes, ecosystem services, human activities and urban-rural relationships for a city without sprawl.

Abstract

The research describes a strategy that establishes an ecological infrastructure for sustaining ecological functions and processes in urban new developing zone (UNDZ). During rapid urbanization, urban sprawl has drove a mass of new constructions which leads to more serious urban sprawl, and causes destruction of ecological integrality and decay of land ecosystem services, presented as frequency of flood and drought and decline of bio-diversity, etc. How to prepare a win-win strategy for UNDZ has become a key issue for sustainable urban development.UNDZ of Hefei City, the capital city of Anhui Province, is located in the southeast of the city and between Chaohu Lake, planned as the city¡¯s new municipal, business and residential zone with a size of 190 square kilometers. The urban planning strategy developed herein is to prioritize the arrangement of ecological infrastructure, based on landscape security patterns, by means of topography, hydrological and ecological processes modeling, and to incorporate factors such as urban flood control, stormwater management, and indicator animal of aigrette which is the most typical and representative bird in this area. The main conclusions are as follows:1. The research develops as an idea of the city of aigrette for UNDZ of Hefei City. Furthermore, the quantity of aigrette inhabiting here would be one of important indicators for monitoring the extent of urban ecological security. Hopefully people is going to live with aigrette in UNDZ while the ecological infrastructure is established. 2. The land used for city construction at most is between 38.95% and 52.63% so as to sustain the integrality of the ecological process and the sustainability of ecosystem services.3. Based on the ecological infrastructure in UNDZ urban land use is arranged according to compatibility of different land use types, in order to maximize ecological benefits.